®
T
he last time we talked we were about to enter
the heaviest tournament schedule of the
season, fishing the last four events in two months and finishing up the high school tournaments with
our boys.
DISAPPOINTMENT - SMITH
This was one tournament that I was very excited about, because it was close to home, just a short 70-mile drive. I haven’t spent any time on Smith Lake over the years: because it was never a big fish factory like Guntersville, so I’ve always had better options.
The past several years the blue back herring have gotten prevalent in the lake and caused the spotted bass population to grow rapidly, so I was excited to see the score tracker lighting up with big numbers of spots during the event.
Unfortunately, we hit it just a week too late for the best spawn and post spawn bite. This was probably the most frustrating tournament of the season for me, because I had a good practice and thought I was guaranteed a strong finish.
Smith is a good pattern lake. My pattern was a wacky-rigged Yamamoto Senko and a “Do-It” Molds Midwest Finesse Head with a three-inch Senko, which is basically a Ned rig. I could literally run and gun and stop on every rocky pocket that looked like the pattern and get bit on one or two casts.
The problem was those fish were right on the tail end of the pattern, and as the days progressed over 90 degrees, they moved out from that shallower depth zone and I never figured them out enough to catch the numbers needed to be competitive in this slugfest.
I ended up with good weight for most tournaments, but for Smith I was near the bottom of the barrel in 70th. I was very disappointed to say the least!
HIGH SCHOOL TOURNAMENT - WEISS
We headed straight home for Laker and Oakley’s last tournament at Lake Weiss for the final Alabama Bass Nation high school tournament.
My son Laker and his partner Jantzen were leading the points and needed to finish the season strong to clinch the Angler of the Year (AOY) title for the High school Alabama Bass Nation.
My son Oakley and his partner Cole were fishing in the Junior division and they were also trying to finish first and qualify for the Bass Nation national championship. Thankfully they both had good days and Laker finished 7th and Oakley finished 11th.
These finishes helped them both seal the points title for each of their high school and Junior divisions. Points champions! Next would be the Alabama Bass Nation state championship in less than a month at Lake Eufaula.
We finally had a few days to regroup at home and had a few sponsor meetings and promotions at Duckett Marine before heading to Table Rock for the next Bass Pro Tour event.
Laker and Jantzen finishing 7th at Weiss lake
Oakley and Cole winning the junior state championship
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Fall 2019
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